I Am The World Trade Center Singer Amy Dykes Diagnosed with Lymphatic Cancer

Tragedy has struck neo-synth-pop duo I Am The World Trade Center. While on tour last month, singer Amy Dykes began to experience swelling in her neck and face. She was taken to a Virginia hospital on April 26th where preliminary testing discovered an "unidentified mass" in her chest. After another round of tests and a day of waiting, she was diagnosed with cancer of lymphatic system.

Lymphatic cancer, also known as Hodgkin's Disease, consists of malignant cell growth in the Lymphatic system, which is responsible for fighting off sickness in the body. At this point, it is unclear how far the disease has progressed, and as such, Dykes will be undergoing more testing in the coming days so that doctors may make a determination. She has also begun chemotherapy, and is currently resting in her hometown of Athens, GA.

The duo had been on a rigorous touring schedule throughout March and April with Paper Lions, and had a number of other dates planned through May. Understandably, those dates have now been cancelled, with the band's performance at Athens' 40 Watt Club last Friday marking the beginning of what will hopefully be a temporary hiatus. I Am The World Trade Center's third full-length, The Cover-Up, is due out next Tuesday via the band's new home, Gammon Records.

The band's official website is offering a day-to-day account of Dykes' progression, and offers an address to which fans may send correspondance and support.

I Am the World Trade Center: http://www.iamluxe.com
Gammon: http://www.gammonrecords.com

DJ Shadow Releases Two New CDs, DVDs
Official website offers just your favorite DJ savings

Rob Mackey reports: Gearheads and DJ-lovin' electronic enthusiasts laud Josh Davis' early work as musical foreshadowing-- his 1996 debut Endtroducing, in particular, is regularly cited as the catalyst for all the instro-hop experimentalism of the past decade. But, I'm no gearhead; nor am I one to hurl around bulky hindsight appraisals of near-decade old albums. However, I do hurl some news stories like a mofo, and my man Josh is 'bout to drop some serious shit on ya head, so here goes:

DJ Shadow has begun hocking live recordings of his short-lived collaboration with Cut Chemist, bits of which were cobbled together for the now out-of-print 2001 release Product Placement. Titled Product Placement on Tour, the disc features material recorded in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, England and Japan. Interestingly enough, an identical version of the disc is being packaged with a DVD version of the set, which includes live footage of the collaboration, as well as director's cut commentary, replete with witty repartee between Shadow and Chemist. (Of course, the DVD costs $10 more.) Both the CD and DVD are available for purchase at Shadow's official website.

Additionally, Shadow will be releasing a different CD/DVD combo via Geffen Records on June 15th, titled In Tune and On Time. The disc is a visual and audio tale of this one night back in 2002, when Davis took to the stage at London's Brixton Academy. 20 tracks found their way onto the CD portion, while four managed to find a home on the DVD, which also includes live footage, interviews with Davis, and a knock-down, drag-out gadget battle between Shadow, his Product Placement ally Chemist, and DJ Nu-Mark of Jurrasic 5. Fight, fight, fight.

DJ Shadow: http://www.djshadow.com

Jeff Tweedy Out of Rehab and Back on the Road
May now resume previously scheduled PCP, meth binge

After receiving treatment for a longtime addiction to painkillers, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy was recently released from a Chicago rehab clinic, and is officially ready to get back in the game, supporting Wilco's forthcoming full-length, A Ghost Is Born. "It's something I've struggled with for a long time," Tweedy told Rolling Stone, "and even further back, I struggled with depression and anxiety and panic disorder. I went to a dual diagnosis center that treated the chemical dependency and the depression. I had never put it together that these things were intertwined, the depression, the migraines and the medication. I'm not embarrassed about it at all. It was a really beautiful experience. I spent a lot of time sitting in a room with crack addicts whose lives were total wrecks, but they were putting their lives back together. All my best friends now are crack addicts."

With that setback finally out of the way, Wilco are preparing for an intense touring regimen that, after a few celebratory shows at Otto's in Dekalb, Illinois, will kick off May 28th at Barcelona's Primavera Sound Festival. Currently, the band has 32 shows planned in support of A Ghost Is Born, which is due out on June 22nd, with many more to follow. In June, they'll play six U.S. dates, before jetting off to 19 more shows in Europe. They aren't scheduled to return to North America until August, when they'll hit Lollapalooza in Detroit, Toronto and Cleveland, and the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island. Dates:

05-19 Dekalb, IL - Otto's
05-20 Dekalb, IL - Otto's
05-28 Barcelona, Spain - Primavera Sound Festival
06-06 Pittsburgh, PA - Three Rivers Arts Festival
06-07 Poughkeepsie, NY - The Chance
06-08 New York, NY - Irving Plaza
06-09 Washington, DC - 9:30 Club
06-11 Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo Festival
06-12 Chicago, IL - The Vic

06-20 Oslo, Norway - Norwegian Wood Festival
06-22 Birmingham, UK - Academy
06-23 Portsmouth, UK - Wedgewood Rooms
06-25 Somerset, UK - Glastonbury Festival
06-26 Hamburg, Germany - Hurricane Festival
06-27 Stuttgart, Germany - Southside Festival
06-29 Brescia, Italy - San Barnadinon Institute
06-30 Zurich, Switzerland - Volkshaus
07-01 Paris, France - La Maroquinerie
07-03 Bonn, Germany - Rheinkultur Festival
07-04 Werchter, Belgium - Rock Werchter Festival
07-06 Copenhagen, Denmark - Klub Vega
07-07 Gothenburg, Sweden - Tradgar Accelerator Festival
07-08 Stockholm, Sweden - Munchen Brewery Accelerator Festival
07-10 Weert, Holland - Bospop Festival
07-11 Dublin, Ireland - Oxegen Festival
07-13 Glasgow, Scotland - Queen Margaret Union
07-14 Manchester, UK - Academy
07-15 London, UK - Astoria

08-03 Detroit, MI - Lollapalooza
08-06 Toronto, ON - Lollapalooza
08-08 Newport, RI - Newport Folk Festival
08-10 Cleveland, OH - Lollapalooza

Wilco: http://www.wilcoworld.net

The Arcade Fire Sign to Merge, Tour in June
Survival of the Fittest: Cash in Skee-Ball tickets for flame retardant gear!

After an indie label bidding war involving such prestigious parties as Absolutely Kosher and Alien8, Montréal pop/rockers The Arcade Fire have announced their signing to Merge Records. The band, which has been said to "twist Polyphonic Spree backgrounds with Death Cab for Cutie lyrics for a distinctive sound that pushes the lines of being both aggressive and calming," will be issuing their debut full-length on the Chapel Hill megalith in the fall.

Future fans will get their first taste on June 6th, when Merge issues the band's first seven-inch, which, in a rare move, will be a split with bandmembers Win and Will Butler's grandfather Alvino Rey. We spoke with Arcade Fire guitarist Tim Kingsbury to get the scoop: "The first side will feature a song from our forthcoming full-length, 'Neighbourhood #1'; the second side will have a song titled 'My Buddy', performed and recorded by the Alvino Rey Orchestra in the early '40s. Alvino Rey was Win and Will's grandfather and he passed away recently at the age of 96. This release is in his memory."

Kingsbury also told Pitchfork that the band is currently busy mixing the debut Arcade Fire album, Funeral, which Merge will issue on September 14th. And here's the tracklist:

01 Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
02 Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
03 Une Annee Sans Lumiere
04 Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
05 Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)
06 Crown of Love
07 Wake Up
08 Haiti
09 Rebellion (Lies)
10 In the Backseat

Following that, they'll head back into the States for another tour in support of the album. Here's the thing, though-- the music? Pretty damn good, as you can confirm for yourself on the band's official website. So, should you be so inclined as to check them out, here are the June dates, all of which will be supporting Pitchfork faves The Unicorns, save for June 7th and 24th. Emergency!:

06-06 Washington, D.C. - Black Cat
06-07 Chapel Hill, NC - The Cave (w/ Fan Modine)
06-08 Atlanta, GA - Echo Lounge
06-10 Birmingham, AL - The Nick
06-11 New Orleans, LA - TBA
06-12 Houston, TX - Mary Jane's (w/ Fiery Furnaces)
06-14 Austin, TX - Emo's
06-15 Denton, TX - Hailey's
06-16 Oklahoma City, OK - The Conservatory
06-17 St. Louis, MO - Rocket Bar
06-18 Chicago, IL - Open End Gallery
06-19 Milwaukee, WI - Mad Planet
06-21 Pittsburgh, PA - TBA
06-22 Rochester, NY - Bug Jar
06-23 Toronto, Ontario - Lee's Palace

The Arcade Fire: http://www.arcadefire.com
Merge: http://www.mergerecords.com

Reznor Prepares "Monophonic" Nine Inch Nails LP
You crazy for this one, Rick!

Is your life hard? Do you hate it all? Are you trapped inside of this broken machine? Well, then, welcome back to the deep, dark sucking hole of Trent Reznor, who has revealed that his next Nine Inch Nails effort is now slated for release this fall on nothing/Interscope. The album, produced by legendary beardgroomer Rick Rubin and rendingly titled Bleed Through, will be Reznor's first Nine Inch Nails album in the five years since he released The Fragile, which in turn was the first Nine Inch Nails album in the five years since The Downward Spiral.

Sure, the lyrics will probably be exactly the same as always (a distinctive mix of expletives, synonyms of "pain," and of course, plenty of nods to the netherworld), but Reznor's revealed a serious nerd streak in the creation of the record, which is reported to be entirely monophonic. Do not adjust your monitor: The man is, indeed, too good for chords. Waxing eloquent to black-clad members of the NIN fanclub, he bespake: "One of the rules of this record has been to orchestrate using monophonic voices. No chords. Anywhere." Now that's what I call music!

We could not reach Reznor for comment on Monday afternoon, but if we had, we imagine he might have aloofly quoted his idols in Current 93. To wit: "...As the blue-green world is drenched in horsegore... streams of urine begin to gush from all the black, bending heavens and hells..." No word yet on a tracklist for the album which Reznor has referred to as "minimal" and "brutal," but Pitchfork's resident psychics Ryan Schreiber and Brent DiCrescenzo were able to come up with something they're guessing will at least be in the ballpark:

01 Sex Hole (Bleeding)
02 Peace Corpse
03 Necronomitron [ft. Lords of Acid]
04 The Pissing
05 Goethe Bloat
06 Colossostomy Bag (Fudge Sac)
07 Cancer Scythe
08 Puddle of Bludd
09 Fuck Cog
10 Supercircumsize Me
11 Amputeen
12 Oil Pig
13 Jesus Cunste (Passion of the Cross'd)
14 Vamp Pyre
15 Sexy Slit F**ker
16 D3lit3
17 I'm Deep Down in a Dark Black Hole with Nothing but My Pain and Hate and Blood to Sup On (Hitler Fist)

A bonus track, "Crack Slut Crunk (Lil' Jon Recruciremixion)", could also provide Reznor with his first Top 40 single since "Closer".

Reznor is presently stocking up on black leather mumus, fishnet stockings, and blackface in preparation for an ambitious world tour in support of Bleed Through. Hell, I know I wanna pay $50 bucks to listen to some guy bitch for two hours. But I guess if it works for Noam Chomsky...

Nine Inch Nails: http://www.nin.com
Interscope: http://www.interscope.com

Spoon to Premiere New Material on New U.S. Tour
Ahh, we too worship the beast and dragon! By the Power of Satan, we call upon The Forces of Darkness to possess this oracle! Open the Gates, come unto us! Unleash the Legions of Hell, enter this chamber now! Shemhamforash! Hail Satan! Let It Be Done

With frontman Britt Daniel wrapping up a brief solo tour of the western United States, Merge Records' website has just announced that Spoon are gearing up for a larger full-band tour this summer. At the shows, the band will reportedly be premiering material from their forthcoming full-length, which is tentatively titled The Beast and Dragon Are Adored and due out late this year. As previously reported, the band has been hard at work on the record at bandmember Jim Eno's studio in Austin for months, with engineer Scott Solter at the helm.

Spoon's full-band tour will kick off just over a month from now in at Kansas' Wakarusa Festival, with the group taking the stage alongside Guided by Voices, Drive-By Truckers, Robbie Fulks, Lucero and Hackensaw Boys, as well as an unusually high proportion of rural rock and jam bands like Big Metal Rooster, Four Fried Chickens and a Coke, Perpetual Groove, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, and The Schwag. After that, it's across the midwest to Columbia, Minneapolis, Madison, St. Louis and Chicago (at night), then across the south to hit Louisville, Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans. Daniel also still has two more solo dates scheduled in Texas and Oklahoma. See:

06-16 Austin, TX - Hole in the Wall (Britt Daniel solo)
06-18 Norman, OK - Opolis (Britt Daniel solo)
06-19 Clinton Lake, KS - Wakarusa Festival
06-20 Columbia, MO - Blue Note
06-22 Minneapolis, MN - 400 Bar
06-23 Madison, WI - The Annex
06-24 St. Louis, MO - The Duck Room
06-25 Chicago, IL - Metro
06-26 Louisville, KY - Headliners
06-28 Nashville, TN - 12th and Party
06-30 Memphis, TN - Hi-Tone
07.01 New Orleans, LA - Howlin' Wolf

Spoon: http://www.spoontheband.com
Merge: http://www.mergerecords.com

New Order Get Ready for New Album
Has it been eight years already?

MTV reports that digipop sequinsizers New Order are already gearing up to begin work on their follow-up to 2001's Get Ready. This shows surprisingly speedy resolve for the notoriously molasses-paced band, as the gap between 1993's Republic and their previous outing was like a really long time. (Do the math, scholars.) The group has enlisted hotshot producers Stephen Street and John Leckie, both of which fetch top dollar in their field, as together, their track record spans work with John Lennon, Pink Floyd, The Smiths and Radiohead. New Order are hoping that each producer will be able to highlight the band's strengths in different ways, ultimately producing a varied and uneven result. (Wait, our words, not theirs.) There's no word on a release date yet, but if you're really, really, really, really patient, one will be surely revealed someday.

In the meantime, Ordertakers Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook will be performing at the Ritz in Manchester, England on May 23rd during a tribute to their former manager, Rob Gretton, who died of a heart attack in 1999. The two won't be reminiscing about yesteryear by jamming through the New Order staples, however, as Hook will be joining avant-maniacs A Certain Ratio, while Bernard Sumner will be sitting in with Doves for an acoustic performance. All proceeds from the event will go to Manchester Kids, a charity dedicated to helping underprivileged children in-- you guessed it-- Bavaria. Oh, we're so funny!

New Order: http://www.neworderonline.com

Les Georges Leningrad Sign to Alien8, Tour
"A female Jello Biafra" most terrifying proposition since nuclear holocaust

If you imagine Pere Ubu and The Pop Group locking themselves in an abattoir with a bunch of vintage Dada pamphlets and making a vintage punk record full of radio static and creepshow organs, you'd begin to approximate the curious milieu of scary-ass Canadian noise commandos Les Georges Leningrad. Or you could just imagine the basslines of early Bauhaus fused with the muppet-like vocals of (a female) Jello Biafra. We predict that kidz across the globe will be fuck-art-let's-dancing to these dub-inflected absurdist cold-war agitprop underdogs and their self-described "petrochemical rock" by year's end, as well as being mystified by the band's description of themselves as "two cunts and two penises making music." Andre Breton, what have you wrought?

Why you care? Well, Les Georges Leningrad recently became labelmates to The Unicorns, Acid Mothers Temple, Set Fire to Flames and Merzbow when they signed with Montréal's fantabulous Alien8 imprint, who just released the band's debut album, Deux Hot Dogs Moutarde Chou, on yesterday. The originally self-released LP has already made some no-waves, landing Les Georges Leningrad a spot on the Mute Records Rough Trade Shops: Post-Punk Vol. I compilation and opening slots on tours with Le Tigre, The Locust and Numbers. Alien8 plans to release the band's new album this fall as well.

Deux Hot Dogs Moutarde Chou's tracklist is as follows. "La Chienne" is not to be confused with Un Chien Andalou, the overexposed film-school staple by Dali and Buñuel (surrealism's The White Album?), which the Pixies, Trent Reznor and countless burgeoning auteurs with Super 8s have already mined to depletion. Whoa-ho-ho-ho:

01 Caamckne Nechn
02 Lollipoplady
03 Bad Smell
04 Georges V
05 La Chienne
06 Didi Extra
07 Prince R.
08 Wunderkind
09 Impermeable [Mouille des Deux Cotes]
10 Cocktail Vampire
11 Constantinople
12 Mysantropic
13 La Première [Doo Doo Doo]

Additionally, Les Georges Leningrad will tour the U.S. with Trans Am in May. Expect various diabolical clown masks, a garbled hybrid of French, English and German, and sundry other unsettling theatrics. The faint of heart should avoid the following dates and locales as they would a steaming pile of merde:

05-12 Cambridge, MA - First Parish Church
05-13 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church
05-14 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom
05-16 Wilmington, NC - The Soapbox
05-17 Atlanta, GA - Echo Lounge
05-19 New Orleans, LA - Howlin' Wolf
05-20 Houston, TX - Mary Jane's Fat Cat
05-21 Austin, TX - The Parish
05-22 Marfa, TX - The Marfa Ballroom
05-25 Tucson, AZ - Plush
05-26 San Diego, CA - Casbah
05-27 Los Angeles, CA - The Echo
05-28 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall
05-29 Oakland, CA - TBA
05-30 Portland, OR - Berbati's Pan
05-31 Seattle, WA - Chop Suey
06-03 Minneapolis, MN - TBA
06-04 Chicago, IL - TBA

Alien8: http://www.alien8recordings.com

The Cure Launch Tour with Interpol, Rapture, Mogwai
C'mon, Stuart Braithwaite with bangs, people!

After numerous vague allusions, breakup-music archetypes The Cure have finally made details of their summer festival tour official. Stage-spanning compatriots of Robert Smith and his band include the kindred spirits of Interpol, the groove-infused but nevertheless Curarian stylings of d-punk fatcats The Rapture, and the post-rock paragons that are Mogwai. Entitled Curiosa, the festival will also play host to a second stage, inhabited by a rotating cast of bands such as Cursive, Muse, Thursday, Head Automatica, The Cooper Temple Clause, and Auf Der Maur. Venues have not yet been declared for the currently available dates, and both the lineup and the tour itinerary are subject to additions, but the current chronology of Curiosa 2004 looks a little something like this:

07-24 West Palm Beach, FL
07-25 Tampa, FL
07-28 Nashville, TN
07-29 Atlanta, GA
07-31 New York, NY
08-01 Camden, NJ
08-03 Cincinnati, OH
08-04 Cleveland, OH
08-07 Boston, MA
08-11 Detroit, MI
08-12 Chicago, IL
08-14 Dallas, TX
08-15 Houston, TX
08-17 Denver, CO
08-18 Salt Lake City, UT
08-27 Los Angeles, CA

As previously reported, The Cure's 13th full-length recording, produced by Ross Robinson, will be eponymous in a late-career fashion much akin to Sugar Ray, and is set for release on June 22nd, on Robinson's I Am Recordings label. Furthermore, Rhino Records is poised to release a series of reissues-- Three Imaginary Boys, Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography-- on August 17th. The band has a handful of solo dates remaining prior to the Curiosa festival:

05-22 Washington, DC - RFK Stadium
06-26 Hamburg, Germany - Hurricane Festival
06-27 Stuttgart, Germany - Southside Festival
07-09 Manchester, England - Move Festival
07-10 Naas, Ireland - Oxegen Festival

Meanwhile, Interpol are supposedly entrenched in a studio with Peter Katis, working on their second full-length release. Mogwai have implied forthcoming American dates inbetween Curiosa performances, and The Rapture are probably passed out in a ditch somewhere. Music!

The Cure: http://www.thecure.com
Interpol: http://www.interpolny.com
The Rapture: http://www.therapturemusic.com
Mogwai: http://www.mogwai.co.uk

The Unicorns Expand Tour, Ready New EP
Okay, but seriously, let's get that dancing jackass in the costume off the stage

Hey, kid, d'ya like sweaty Canadians in pink slacks and suspenders? D'ya like cute boys with a pension for fanciful fashion, bubblegum-psych, mythical creatures and acid-doowop? D'ya like reading the constant barrage of "Hey, The Unicorns are touring again" stories we at The Fork throw your way? Well, if you answered yes to at least one of the preceding questions, you might consider reading this chunk of glorious information:

It's really no shock that Neil Diamonds and Alden Ginger are back on the road, hocking the ghost-obsessed anthems and lo-fi crackpop of their full-length debut, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone? Hell, they've been touring almost constantly since the album's release SEVEN MONTHS AGO. Unfortunately, though, these dates happen to already be underway, so I can't do that whole, "the tour kicks off in this town and blah blah blah ends in this town, stringing together a whopping blah blah blah" thing. However, I can do this: Hey, The Unicorns are touring again! Dates:

05-12 Montreal, Quebec, Canada - O Patro Vys CBC Radio Sonic Party
05-13 Kingston, Ontario, Canada - ELIXIR, w/ Controller.Controller
05-14 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada - Babylon CBC Radio Sonic Party
05-16 New York, NY - The Knit, Solid PR Party
05-29 Quebec City, Quebec, Canada - Galerie Rouge
06-01 ST. CATHERINES - L3 w/ Death From Above
06-02 London, Ontario, Canada - Call The Office
06-03 Cleveland, OH - Grog Shop
06-04 Columbus, OH - OSU Springfest
06-05 Baltimore, MD - Ottobar
06-06 Washington, DC - Black Cat
06-07 W. Columbia, SC - New Brookland Tavern
06-08 Atlanta, GA - Echo Lounge
06-10 Birmingham, AL - The Nick
06-11 New Orleans, LA - TBA
06-12 Houston, TX - Mary Jane's Fat Cat
06-14 Austin, TX - Emo's
06-15 Denton, TX - Hailey's
06-16 Oklahoma City, OK - The Conservatory
06-17 St. Louis, MO - Rocket Bar
06-18 Chicago, IL - Open End Gallery
06-19 Milwaukee, WI - Mad Planet (2 shows (AA/21+)
06-21 Pittsburgh, PA - TBA
06-22 Rochester, NY - Bug Jar

In related 'Corns news, the band will be unveiling an EP via Suicide Squeeze on May 18th. Entitled 2014, the release is a beefed up, CD-ified version of the seven-inch they dropped on the label at the turn of the year, with two brand spankin' new nuggets of wide-eyed myth-pop and weird cover art with a pumpkin-in-a-tree-with-a-rainbow-bleeding-tears-or-maybe-just-crying on it. Tracklist:

01 The Unicorns: 2014
02 Emasculate The Masculine
03 Evacuate The Vacuous
04 The Unicorns: 2014

Suicide Squeeze: http://www.suicidesqueeze.net
The Unicorns: http://www.theunicorns.net

John Cale, Stereolab, Shellac Sign on for AV Fest
Cale to reveal nerdish roots with primitive Amiga animation from 1982

As the summer festival season kicks into high gear, yet another international event chock full of indie rock superstarz comes to a greazy head. The AV Festival will take place July 2 - 4 in Fuengirola, Spain, though we're guessing you won't get to eat a can of baked beans and get misty-eyed to Lee Greenwood if you're there for the final day, which makes the event markedly different than my annual Independence Day Cookout and Badminton Tourney. If you do decide to head over, though, might I suggest you memorize the helpful Spanish phrases, "Donde está la cerveza, hombre?" and, "Perdóneme, yo pienso que acabo de vomitar en su zapato." If you're coming to my cookout, no Español is necessary, but do bring some hot dog buns or something.

The full lineup has yet to be announced, but we're already seeing confirmations from a number of quasi-celebratas. The list so far: John Cale, Stereolab, Shellac, Four Tet, Tim Booth (formerly of James), Steven Malkmus and the Jicks, Squarepusher, Trans Am, M83, Teflon Tel Aviv, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, Pluramon, Violet Indiana (featuring Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins), and Kid Loco. It's worth noting, of course, that not all acts have been announced as of yet, and that there remains one standing TBA in the headlining slot. Are the Pixies busy these days?

AV Festival: http://www.avfestival.com

Maritime to Support Debut LP with June Tour
Stop... Maritime!

Maritime, the sparkling new pop project featuring The Promise Ring's Davey von Bohlen and Dan Didier, and Dismemberment Plan's Eric Axelson, are heading out on tour in support of their J. Robbins produced debut, Glass Floor, which is slated for a May 31 release on DeSoto Records. Given the players, one might expect overtly sentimental pop songs bolstered by elastic, hyper-kinetic bass grooves-- but one would be only half-right. Nothing against the songs, but having Axelson (whose bass skills-- and D-Plan fans will back me up on this-- are COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTROL) lay down these innocuous little licks is like having Georg Cantor tutor you in long division.

That said, Glass Floor treads the highwire between cloying sentiment and earnest, fleshed-out emoting, tottering precariously one way or the other from track to track. It's presumed that the album would like to be thought of as "mature," and often, at least in its restrained songcraft and effortlessly effective melodies, it is; although it does sometimes get a bit too giddy and toss of lyrics better left to junior high slam books. Listening to Maritime in the car with all the windows rolled up is the closest I'll ever come to digging Dashboard Confessional, even though when the disc is done I'm like, hey, where did my testicles go?

Oh, so the point was that Maritime is going on tour. I gathered some mud and sticks and tried to build myself a little helper monkey to do my chores, but I put it together wrong and it ended up being tourdates:

05-29 Milwaukee, WI - Mad Planet
06-01 St. Louis, MO - Rocketbar
06-07 Cambridge, MA - Middle East Upstairs
06-11 Dayton, OH - Elbows
06-13 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock Social Club
06-15 Omaha, NE - Sokol Underground
06-16 Denver, CO - Rock Island
06-23 San Francisco, CA - Bottom of the Hill

Maritime: http://www.maritimesongs.com
DeSoto: http://www.desotorecords.com

Do you have a news tip for us? Anything crazy happen at a show you attended recently? Do you have inside info on the bands we cover? Is one of your favorite artists (that's not somebody you know personally) releasing a new record you'd like to see covered? You will remain completely anonymous, unless we are given your express permission to reveal your identity. (Please note that publicists, managers, booking agents, and other artist representatives are generally exempt from this rule, but will also be granted anonymity if requested.)